Gene Lees Ad Lz'bz'tum

Jazzletter PO Box 240, Ojai CA 93024-0240Nouember 200 7 Vol 20 No. 71

Two of a Kind: Stan and PeteI’ve told this before, but this is how I met the man. If youhave reached “a certain age,” as the French delicately put it,sufficient to remember the big bands in all their brassy glory,you will recall how the true believers would cluster close tothe bandstand, listening to soloists whose names we knew,while the mere fans — some distance behind us — did theirjitterbug gyrations. Since I was always one of these ardentlisteners, Inever learned to dance worth a hoot. But I heard alot of good music.

Sometimes I got up the nerve to talk to some of themusicians, whose first question to a local kid was not, aslegend would have it, “Where can I meet a chick?” but“Where is there a good restaurant?” The chicks came freelyenough; the restaurants were harder to find.

In thispursuit ofthe music, I got to know a number of themembers of the Les Brown band. The late Wes Hensell, whowas playing lead trumpet at the time, was particularly warmto me, and we remained friends during his time as head of thebrass department at the Berklee College of Music. Anotherwho befriended me was Ray Sims, who played trombone(superbly) and sang with the band. Zoot Sims was his brother;it is not generally known that Zoot, like Ray, was a very goodsinger. I met Dave Pell too. Whenever the Les Brown bandcame through, I would hang with those guys.

As much as I admired the players in these bands, I wasenthralled by the work of some invisible men: the arrangers:Sy Oliver with Tommy Dorsey, Fletcher Henderson, MelPowell, Jimmy Mundy, and Eddie Sauter with Benny Good-man, Frank Comstock with Les Brown, Eddie Durham withCount Basie, someone named Gerry Mulligan who wrote DiscJockey Jump for Gene Krupa, and more

I was bom in Hamilton, Ontario, and began a career as anewspaper reporter at the Hamilton Spectator when I wasnineteen. The Gene Krupa band came to town. One of itstenor players was Mitch Melnick, who was also from Hamil-ton. Somehow I ended up at a party at his mother’s home, andI sat in her kitchen with Gene Krupa, talking, amazed thatsuch a god would even acknowledge my existence, much lesschat with me as an equal. Whatever he said I no longer

remember, but I remembered enough to write a short articleand submit it to Down Beat. It became my first piece in themagazine and my first piece published in the United States. Iwas paid, I believe, five dollars. I think that was 1949.

Yet another of the bands I admired came through, playingin the red-brick Armory on north James Street. As usual I wasstanding in the crowd of listeners near the bandstand. I wasstartled to find that the young man (older than I, but aboutthirty-three at the time) standing next to me was the band’schief arranger, whose bespectacled face I recognized frommagazine photographs. I got up the courage to tell him howmuch I admired his writing; which had grandeur. He waspolite to me, and suggested we go up to the balcony to listen.We sat through a long evening looking dovm at the band anddiscussing the music. Maybe I don’t even know how much Ileamed that night.

A few years ago, I was at aparty given by Henry Mancini.I found myself in conversation with one of I-Iank’s closestfriends, Pete Rugolo. I told him the story about the arrangerand said, “Do you know who the arranger was, Pete?”‘ And he said, “No.”

And I said, “You.”

“Pete Rugolo was the architect ofthe Stan Kenton band,” saidone of Pete’s friends of many years, composer Allyn Fergu-son, who also wrote for Kenton. Among other things, he wrotePassacaglia and Fugue for the Neophonic Orcherstra. “Petehad the academic background that Stan lacked.”

And of course it was the Kenton band I was hearing thenight I met Pete. That had to be in 1948 or ’49, because Stanbroke up the band in ’49 and Pete went out on his own, atfirst as an a&r man with Capitol Records. He would have aplace in jazz history ifonly because he is the man who signedthe Miles Davis group that featured writing by John Lewis,Johnny Carisi and most of all Gerry Mulligan to record aseries of “sides” for Capitol.

It occurs to me that I already had met Kenton when I metPete. That must have been in 1947. I held my first writing jobat a broadcasting magazine in Toronto, and for some reasonof union politics, Kenton was not allowed to make a certainradio broadcast. I was sent to his hotel to get his side of the

4,

_* V "A"! V - i I ‘rd’. ‘fr’

story, and I imagine that I was, as a serious fan of that bandin its main Artistry in Rhythm period, rather in awe at the ideaofmeeting him. I knocked on his door, and he answered, freshout ofthe shower, naked but for a towel around his waist, stilldrying his hair. Since he was about six-foot five, with a long,handsome, craggy face, a semi-nude soaking wet Stan Kentonwas a figure to conjure with. He invited me in, I did myinterview, and left. I think I was nineteen. It was about twelveyears later, when I was editor ofDown Beat, when I met himagain. He said, ‘Hello, Gene, nice to see to see you again.” Sohelp me.

“Stan could do that,” Pete said.“The only other person I ever knew with a memory for

names like that,” I told Pete, “was Liberace.”Stan Kenton was an enonnously nice man. I mentioned this

to arranger and composer Bill Kirchner, who said, “EveryoneI’ve ever known who played in that band said the same thing.Even Mel Lewis, who was, as you know, a man not easilypleased.”

The relationship between Rugolo and Kenton has beencompared to that between Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn.“That’s what they all say, “Pete said. “I really don’t knowhow close Strayhom was with Ellington. But I think it wassimilar because Stan never had time to write any more. Everytime we’d get to a hotel for a few days, we’d find a piano anddiscuss different arrangements. We’d call it making menus.He’d say, ‘Well, we’ll start off with eight bars, and then we’lldo this or that.’ We wrote a few tunes together.Collaboration was one. Most of the time he just let me alone.He said, ‘You know what to do.’”

On Christmas Day, 2001, Pete Rugolo turned 86, thoughhe looked far younger than that. He is a soft-spoken, self-efifacing man, which may be one of the reasons he has notbeen given his due as the pioneering jazz composer he was.Kenton managed to be a controversial figure for the scope ofwhat he attempted, which was often denounced as pompous.And it could be, particularly in its later manifestations. Butthe band for which Pete first wrote had a blazing quality,particularly in its slow pieces, which a lot of young peoplefound moody, almost mystical, and melancholy, an emotionappropriate to the fragile years of adolescence.

Pete was born in Sicily in a little mountaintop town nearMessina called San Piero. Another pioneering jazz writer ofthe l940s, when the music was expanding its harmonic andrhythmic language, George Wallington, was also born inSicily. He first studied piano with his father, who was anopera singer. His name was Giacinto Figlia, and the familymoved to New York from Palenno when he was a year old.

Pete’s family made the move when he was five.“The only thing I remember about it is seeing the Statue of

0

Liberty from the boat,” Pete said. “We didn’t stop in NewYork. We went right on by train to Santa Rosa, Califomia,where my grandfather was, my mother’s father. He cameyears before we did. And he bought, like, a country store upby the Russian River, Santa Rosa, Sonoma County. When hehad enough money, he sent for his children, two sons and adaughter, my mother. My dad had a degree as a stone mason,but when he came here he couldn’t get work as a mason. Myuncle was a shoemaker, and he taught my father the shoebusiness. He had a little store in Santa Rosa, and when herepaired shoes, they were like new. It was just a little busi-ness. We were very poor people. My dad finally bought alittle house. My mother worked in a cannery. We all worked.I remember picking hops in the fields. And apples. There werea lot of Italian people in Santa Rosa.

“I walked a couple of miles to school every day, and thenstarted playing all the instruments. My dad would fix people’sshoes and if they couldn’t pay him, they would bring himthings. Someone brought him a mandolin, and I startedplaying the mandolin. One time I got a banjo, and I startedplaying that. And then somebody, who must have owed mydad a few hundred dollars, brought a beautiful grand piano.I leamed to play by ear. I would play these Italian tunes, OSole Mio and things like that.

“There was a little town near Santa Rosa called Petaluma.Later on I would hitch-hike to a teacher there for pianolessons. She taught more or less from the jazz books.

“I went to high school and junior college in Santa Rosa.From there I went to San Francisco State College to be ateacher. I never thought I’d make a living in music. I studiedclassical piano for the first time. I had to play some Beetho-ven for my graduation. I went for four years, got my B.A. Iplayed in dance bands in San Francisco. My favorite pianoplayers were Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum. I played atSweets Ballroom, where every week they would have a nameband. Benny Goodman came in with Harry James playing thetrumpet. Sinatra came in singing with Tommy Dorsey. Wewould play the first couple of hours and then we’d hear DukeEllington or Jimmie Lunceford or Gene Kmpa. I remembergiving Gene a couple of arrangements.

“I learned the hard way, and I got to be pretty good, I mustsay. Everybody wanted to use me to play piano in dancebands. In those days in San Francisco, what they called tenorbands were quite popular. I had to play like Eddie Duchin andpeople like that. I didn’t go for the Freddy Martin type things.Gil Evans was my favorite band.”

Gil Evans had a highly regarded regional band that playedin a Benny Goodman style. It was heard on the radio.

“I liked Fletcher Henderson,” Pete said. “Eddie Sauter wasone ofmy favorite arrangers. And Bill Finegan. They were to

me the greatest. I first met Eddie Sauter when he was playingtrumpet with Red Norvo’s orchestra in San Francisco. That’swhen I was going to school. I could never afford to go into theSt. Francis Hotel. But I would listen by the door all the time.Eddie Sauter was arranging in those days for Mildred Bailey,I think. He was very modem for those days, and that was thekind of arranger I liked.

“Then I heard that Darius Milhaud was going to teach atMills College. It was a girls’ school. But I applied and I wasaccepted and I was the first boy to go to Mills College. Istudied with Darius Milhaud for two years and I got mymaster’s. It was a wonderful experience. Dave Brubeckstudied with Milhaud at Mills after me. And his brotherHoward studied there.

“It was more or less private study with Milhaud. We’d gettogether a couple of times a week, and we’d talk, and he’dgive me some assignments, like setting music to a poem, andhe’d criticize, and say, ‘See, you did this melody too muchhere, you repeated it too much.’ It wasn’t a big teaching thing.I tried to listen to all of his music. I hadn’t heard it too muchbefore. I studied with another teacher there too, a lady whowas teaching counterpoint and all that. I studied Palestrina.Fonnal study, you know. I had a music history class.

“I took a French class. I remember one moming all thegirls were rushing to get in there, and they thought I was ateacher, and they were mad when they found I was just one ofthem. It was nine o’clock and they didn’t have any lipstick on.I got to know them, and I played the piano for them.

“I first met Stan when he was at the Golden Gate Theaterin San Francisco. In those days they had bands all the time.One day I got up the nerve to bring three or four arrangementsand I went backstage and asked to meet him and he was verynice and he saw me. I said, ‘I have some arrangements hereand I sure would like you to try them out. But if you don’t usethem, please give them back, ’cause I copied them all myself.’He got a big kick out of that.

“I was in the Army then. I had the dance band, and Iplayed French hom in the regular band and in the Santa RosaSymphony. I was never a first hom player.

- “A month or so later I got a call in the barracks. Somebodysaid, ‘Stan Kenton calling Pete Rugolo.’ So I ran out andtalked to him on the phone, and he said, ‘We just went overyour arrangements. Vido Musso said, “Remember that kid inSan Francisco? Why don’t you try his arrangements?” Sothey tried my three or four arrangements. Stan said, ‘You donot write like me. You write more modern, and better than Ido. Whenever you get out of the Army, I’d like to hire you.’

“When I first came out of the Army, I played in a band atHermosa Beach. Johnny Richards heard me. He liked myplaying. His piano player at that time was Paul Smith. He had

to leave the band and Johnny hired me. So I played with himfor a few months. I played in a sort of Teddy Wilson style. Ofcourse I copied everybody, Earl Hines, Jess Stacy. I wasn’ttoo original, but I was pretty good.”

Richards too would write for Kenton. The Cuban Firealbum of 1956 is his. Richards was bom John Cascales inQuerataro State, Mexico, in 1911, and grew up in Schenecta-dy, New York. The myth of the uneducated jazz musician isexcessive. Though there indeed were those who leamed by earand by instinct, most of them, I have found, have had solidand often fomudable academic backgrounds, and those wholacked college degrees had extensive private training, or, as inthe cases of Robert Famon and Gil Evans, rigorous self-

Richards’ mother was a professional pianist who hadstudied with Paderewski, and he was playing various instru-ments in vaudeville when he was ten. Later, in Los Angeles,he took his master’s degree at UCLA and studied with AmoldSchoenberg. He had his own band from 1940 to 1945.Besides Pete on piano he had on baritone saxophone RobertGraettinger, who would later write Thermopolae and City ofGlass for Kenton, which seemed radically modem in thatperiod, as indeed they were.

Because he had a good background as an arranger andcomposer, Stan knew whom he was hiring and, like LesBrown, who also had an arranging background, he went forthose he considered better than he. "

“One time when I was still in the army, Stan was playingat the Palladium. I went with a few more arrangements. Hesaid it again, ‘Whenever you get out of the Army, the job’syours.’ So that’s what happened. I called Stan in New York.He sent me the money and I joined him at the Meadowbrook.It was a miracle that he went over those arrangements andsent for me. I traveled with him on the road almost five years,until he gave up the band in 1949.

“Stan never told me what to do. I had to do a few arrange-ments for June Christy, and things like that. I would get allthese ideas, and I would write them. I loved Bartok andStravinsky. I thought, There’s no reason why a jazz bandcan’t be playing more modem sounds, some dissonances andtone colors. So I started writing arrangements like that forStan, and he was wonderful. The guys in the band didn’talways like it. They liked a Basie-type band. But later on theyleamed to like it. Buddy Childers said, ‘My God, if it weren’tfor you, I wouldn’t be playing like I am. ’ At first they thoughtthey had wrong notes in dissonant things, and then they gotused to them and they enjoyed playing the arrangements. Butat first they said, ‘Why are we doing this kind of music, it’ssupposed to be a jazz band?’ But Stan left me alone. I’d justget an idea. Sometimes I had a name for it, sometimes Ididn’t. He recorded everything I wrote.”

One of the best things on the band that I have read is in aliner note by Pete Welding for a reissue CD that he produced,Kenton: New Concepts in Artistry in Rhythm. Acknowledgingthe later criticisms of Kenton, Welding wrote:

“But the 1940s and most of the ’50s belonged to Kenton.His was one of the most vital new bands to have emergedduring the war years and, as the decade advanced and putbehind it the hit-oriented vocals and novelty fare that initiallyhad enabled it to sustain itself, its music became ever moreventuresome in character as its approach was more clearlydefined. This stemmed almost solely fiom Kenton, through themany attractive themes and striking arrangements he fash-ioned for the band and . . . through supervising . . . the otherorchestrators who from the late ’40s contributed to its book.”

“A lot of the things in the book I did not write,” Rugolosaid. “Stan wrote Artistry in Rhythm, although I did differentarrangements of it. He’d been using it as a theme, the slowversion. I did Artistry Jumps. Stan wrote Concerto to EndAllConcertos and Opus in Pastels.” Indeed, Kenton wrote andarranged a lot of the material that defined the band by themid-l940s, including Eager Beaver, Painted Rhythm,Collaboration, Theme to the West, ll/Iinor Riff, and SouthernScandal. “They were all things he wrote before Ijoined theband,” Pete said. “I wrote Elegyfor Alto and a lot of things.I wrote most of the original tunes for the band.

“We were supposed to record Ravel’s Bolero. But wecouldn’t get a copyright clearance. Stan said, ‘Can you writea new bolero?’ So I wrote Artistry in Bolero. Ten out oftwelve things in those albums are mine.”

One ofthe things he wrote was an arrangement of BemiyCarter’s Lonely Woman, featuring a trombone solo by MiltBemart. He also wrote an arrangement on All the Things YouAre for June Christy. The tune itself is beyond the scope ofher chops, and the boodly-oo-debe-bop scat solo in the up-tempo second chorus is particularly inept. But then my viewson scat singing are by now a matter of record. He also wrotea piece called Three Mothers, a sort of homage to WoodyHerman’s Four Brothers. The players were Art Pepper,Conte Candoli, and Bob Cooper. Bebop was in full flower,and Pete sounded very much at home in it.

Kenton had an acute ear not only for arrangers, Bill Russoand Bill Holman among the most important, but for players.The alumni included, as well as those already mentioned, StanGetz, Eddie Safranski, Kai Wmding, Shelly Manne, LaurindoAhneida, Conte and Pete Candoli, Maynard Ferguson, ShortyRogers, Lennie Niehaus, Frank Rosolino, Sal Salvador, BillPerkins, Lee Konitz, Richie Kamuca, Herb Geller, Zoot Sims,Stan Levey, Bill Perkins, Charlie Mariano, Carl Fontana,Pepper Adams, Red Mitchell, Jack Sheldon, Bud Shank, RolfEricson, Jimmy Knepper, Al Porcino, and Red Kelly. A lot of

these men also played in the Woody Herman bandThere was no great love between Woody Herman and Stan

Kenton. Because I liked both men, and Woody was ahnost afather to me, I tried to soothe things, telling each of them (Ilied) something nice the other supposedly had said about him.It didn’t work; they either knew each other too well, or theyknew me too well. Bassist Red Kelly, one of those whoworked in both bands, proposed a theory. “They didn’t trusteach other,” Red said. “Woody didn’t trust anything thatdidr1’t swing. Stan didn’t trust anything that did.”

Shelly Marine was quoted in Down Beat as saying thatplaying drums with Kenton was like chopping wood. AlPorcino, one of the greatest of lead trumpet players, was yetanother ofthose who had played in both bands. A legend hasgrown up around a remark attributed to Porcino. Stan wouldsometimes give pep talks to the band. In one of them Stan said(and he had a wonderfully sonorous voice), “We’ve had theArtistry in Rhythm orchestra, we’ve had the Innovations inModem Music orchestra, we’ve had the NeophonicOrchestra. We’ve got to try something new.”

From the back ofthe band came the slow bored voice ofAlPorcino, “We could try swinging, Stan.”

Bud Shank told me a few years ago:“I had and still have a lot of respect for Stan. He really

encouraged the guys in the band to do whatever their thingwas. I was hired to be lead alto player, not to be a soloist.That was Art Pepper’s job. Whatever your position in thatband, Stan encouraged you to do your thing.

“But that band was too clumsy to swing — because of theinstrumentation and the voicings. On the other hand, thesounds that came out of it were big noises, really impressive.That’s what that band was all about, making those really bignoises. As far as swinging, it never did swing. Maybe itwasn’t supposed to. I don’t know. There sure were someplayers in it who swung.

“The Contemporary Concepts album, with those BillHolman arrangements — that’s one of the best big-bandalbums I’ve ever heard.”

And, with Mel Lewis driving the rhythm section, itassuredly swung.

Confirming Bud’s statement that Stan let the musicians dotheir thing, Pete said: “We played a lot of theaters in thosedays. Stan needed a fast opener. He’d tell me things like that.He changed hardly a note ofwhat I did. He paid me so mucha week. At first it was fifly dollars a week, or something likethat, but he never said, ‘You have to write so many arrange-ments. ’ When we traveled I never had time to write. But whenwe’d get to L.A. I’d write five arrangements. I leamed towrite pretty fast in those days. One tune a day.

“I traveled on the bus. We had to pay for our own room

and board. We were on the bus a lot, playing one-nighters.We’d play one place and the next night we’d be two hundredmiles away. I loved playing Canada.”

“Yeah, that’s where I met you. You were so kind to me.”“I’m glad. I think all the people I met were nice to me. I

met Duke Ellington. He would talk to me. In fact he’d call meat four o’clock in the morning and say, ‘When are you goingto write something for me?’ I couldn’t write for him. He wasmy favorite, and I’d think, ‘What if I write something and hedoesn’t like it?’ The other guy I did the same thing to wasFrank Sinatra. I got to be a buddy ofhis. I kept company withhim, especially during his bad years when he couldn’t sing.He was always alter me to do an arrangement for him. And Icould never do it. He was my favorite singer, and I thought‘Suppose I do something and he doesn’t like it?’ So those two,Duke Ellington and Frank Sinatra, I could never write forthem. Anybody else asked me, and I would do it. CharlieBamet. Whatever they wanted. But those two, I never couldforce myself to write for them.

“Alter Stan broke up the band in ’49, I stayed two years inNew York. I went to work for Capitol records, producing. Irecorded all the Capitol people that came to town. In thosedays, New York was wonderful. It had 52"“ Street and all thejazz. I did some arrangements. I wrote for Billy Eckstine. Allthe good singers liked my work. A lot of artists were cominginto New York to record. Capitol had an office there. I didMel Torrné’s first things, Blue Moon. I found HarryBelafonte singing some place, and signed him. He could singjazz, but he didn’t sell and Capitol let him go. He becamefamous singing calypso. We’ve remained friends.

“I produced the Miles Davis sessions they later calledBirth ofthe Cool. I didn’t make that name up. I heard themrehearsing down in the Village one day. I liked the idea of thisband, so I signed them. We made some dates. Nobody knewit was going to be that popular until Capitol released it as TheBirth ofthe Cool.

“It was a thing we all loved doing. We had all those goodplayers, like Gerry Mulligan and Lee Konitz. Capitol put therecords out, and the musicians started collecting them. Iproduced them all. I stayed in the booth and I really wastough with them. I made them do things over and over untilthey were just right. Stan taught me that. Stan would take ahalf hour tuning, making sure everything was just right. Wereally spent time on things, and that’s why those records areso good.” .

“What is remarkable about that Miles Davis band,” I said,“is that it only ever played two public engagements, a week atthe Royal Roost and a one-nighter at Birdland, and madewhat was collected into one ten-inch LP, and it has had thisimmense influence on American music.”

“That’s right,” Pete said. “The musicians bought therecords. It was word of mouth.”

It is a more than likely that without Pete Rugolo, thoserecords would never have been made.

He also produced — and wrote — a considerable numberofthe Nat Cole records, including one of the most famous ofthem all. “I did about forty things for Nat. For a couple ofyears, I did all his things. One of the things I was proud ofwas Lush Lifiz. When it first came out, Capitol didn’t like it.They didn’t release it for a whole year. They finally put it outas a B side on a real commercial tune. And people startedreally liking it. That was the first recording of the tune. BillyStrayhom gave it to me. He said, ‘I’ve got a tune here. I wishyou’d show it to Nat.’ I loved the tune. I made like a tonepoem out of it. I made it about twice as long. But for a longtime I got criticized for it.

“Nat was so nioe to work for. He never told me what to do.He would give me a list of songs. I knew his keys. And thenwe’d do a record date two or three times a year. We’d dosomething here or something in New York. He let me writenice things. I wrote some pretty string stufi’. “

Pete wrote for a dizzying variety of singers during hisCapitol years, including the Four Freshmen.

“They came to my oflice ir1 New York,” he said, “and theysang Laura for me and a few tunes and I loved them. I talkedCapitol into signing them. When I came back out here, I gottogether with them. They liked the sound of Stan’s trombones.So I talked them into recording with five trombones. I wrotethe arrangements, I conducted, I produced it. We called itFour Freshmen and Five Trombones. It made a big hit. Lateron we tried it again, but it wasn’t as successfiil. I was closefriends with them. They were all wonderful guys.

“When I moved here to L.A. from New York, I wentthrough a divorce. She took every cent out of the bank. WhenI arrived, I didn’t have a nickel. I stayed at June Christy’splace for a while. I got a call from a publisher, MickeyGoldsen. He said, ‘Pete, you know, your royalties are reallygood. Ifyou want, I can give you so much a month until youget settled.’ I was looking for work. I was ghosting, I waswriting things for Les Baxter for fifty dollars an arrangement.I did a whole album with Yma Sumac. I was doing a lot ofthings for Ray Anthony. So when Mickey Goldsen called me,he said he could give me $200 a month to live on. Many yearslater he told me, ‘Pete, I have to tell you. That was Stan’smoney. He was supporting you.’

“Stan published my songs, and he got the money back intime, but Stan did things like that. Stan had a couple ofpublishing companies with Mickey. Mickey said, ‘Stan wasthe one. He wanted me to take care of you.”’

(Mickey Goldsen headed Capitol’s publishing division

during Johnny Mercer’s presidency of the company. Later heset up his own publishing companies, under the general headof Criterion Music. He has a considerable jazz catalogue,including many works of Charlie Parker and Gerry Mulligan.He is probably, along with Howie Richmond, the mostrespected publisher in this business. Howie is now semi-retired, but Mickey is still very active, working ever day andplaying termis every morning. And he is eighty-six.)

“For a while I was an a&r man with Mercury,” Pete said.“Stereo was just coming out. I did an album with ten trom-bones and two pianos. Then I did ten trumpets. I took all thefamous trumpet times and made arrangements. Then I did onewith two basses. I was allowed to do anything I wanted to. Iproduced Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington.

“I got a call from Johnny Green, who was head of musicat MGM in those days. They were making a movie withMickey Rooney playing the drums, called The Strip. I wrotesort of a jazz score. That was my first movie. I got to meetJoe Pasternak, who was producing all the musicals, and I didall the Esther Williams pictures. I stayed ahnost five years atMGM.

‘“l'henone day I got a call from Stanley Vlrilson at Univer-sal. They said they were doing a TV series with Boris Karlofi‘called Thriller and they thought I’d be good for that kind ofscore. They wanted a real kind ofmodem score. So I went toUniversal and I did the pilot and they really liked it a lot. Imet Roy Huggins, who became a very dear friend, and heused me in everything. I did The Fugitive theme and the musicand everything Roy Huggins did. And I did other things atUniversal. I stayed at Universal for fifteen years. I did oneshow after another. I wrote, like, forty minutes ofmusic everyweek. I don’t know how I ever did it. I learned to write realfast! And I never had an orchestrator. I orchestrated all myown music. I did a lot of those movies-of-the-week, as theycalled them. I did some of the Hitchcock TV shows.”

“Were you and Mancini at Universal at the same time?”“Yeah. By then Hank was doing movies. He didn’t do any

television then. He’d already done Peter Gunn. We were verydear friends. We had dinner together, we liked to cooktogether. For a long time he never got the credit he deserved.It went to Joseph Gershenson at Universal. Hank would get anorchestration credit. Gershenson would take the music credit.That was going on a lot in those days.”

I said, “Hank did things like Creature from the BlackLagoon, and the royalties are still coming in. As Hank said,‘Movies are forever.”’

“Oh sure. I was griping all the time because Roy Hugginswanted music under everything, fires, machine guns, wrecks.And I was saying, ‘I don’t have time to write all that music!’But now I’m so glad I did, because the residuals are by the

minute. And they took time to do, automobile races, and allthat. Now I’m glad I did it”

I asked Pete, who retired some time ago, if he could, in sostoried a career, cite high points in his life and work. He said:

“I wrote a lot oftelevision shows. I did movies. I did somejazz albums for Columbia Records. I’m very proud of all thethings I did with June Christy, Something Cool.

“And the years with Stan. They were wonderful. Stan waswonderfirl. We were very close friends, ahnost like brothers.”

Some years ago, Henry Mancini went to the mountain villagewhere his father was bom. The road was rough and danger-ous. There was no hotel in the village, and he and his wifetumed around and went back down the moimtain. Now, Hanktold me, a freeway ran to the village, and it had evolved intoa ski resort. He said it’s where the Italians go to ski.

Pete made a similar pilgrimage, but in his case to thevillage in which not his father but he was bom. Again, theroad up the mountain was dangerous. And again, there was nohotel, and he never did fmd the house in which he was bom.He and his wife Edie told their driver to turn around, and theywent back dovm the mountain. They went on to Messina.

Sicily was far in Pete’s past.